The Lion’s Daughter – Future Cult (Season of Mist, 2018)

Where has this album been all my life? It isn’t every day that you find a record that seems to have been tailor made to satisfy your personal listening palette, but on Future Cult, St. Louis-based trio The Lion’s Daughter have managed to successfully combine a few of my most favorite things, namely pulverizing extreme metal and creepy, John Carpenter-esque synthesizers. I’m not quite sure yet if it’s as delightful a combination as chocolate and peanut butter, but they’re definitely two great tastes that taste great together.

Of course, The Lion’s Daughter aren’t the first band to combine metal with old school synths, but they might be the first band to do it and not come off as being shamelessly retro. Instead, the trio attack in a very forward-thinking manner, incorporating elements of sludge, black metal and post metal to create something that sounds legitimately post-apocalyptic. When I listen to tracks such as “Die Into Us” and “Grease Infant,” I definitely get a vibe that’s far more Mad Max: Fury Road than it is Suspiria.

Indeed, most of the coverage of Future Cult has zeroed in on the band’s use of synths, but the fact of the matter is these guys are rock solid songwriters who’ve accomplished the increasingly rare feat of crafting an album’s worth of tracks that each have their own distinct character. The Lion’s Daughter utilize the synthesizer not as a gimmick to get themselves noticed, but rather as simply another ingredient in their singular approach to making music that’s ugly, crushing and at times oddly catchy.

With Future Cult, The Lion’s Daughter have started to carve out a very interesting niche for themselves within the overcrowded confines of today’s metal scene; it’s my hope that they will continue to experiment with these electronic elements going forward, because as good as this album is, I can’t help but feel these guys’ masterpiece is still yet to come.